Labor officials say that many of their critics are acting in bad faith, exploiting parents’ pandemic-related frustrations to advance longstanding political goals, like discrediting unions and expanding private-school vouchers....
If periods of remote learning this winter hurt the Democratic Party, “that’s a question for the consultants and the brain trusts to figure out,” said Mr. Abeigon, the Newark union president. “But that it’s the right thing to do? There’s no question in my mind.”
You can't open the schools without the teachers, and Democrats can't win without teachers.
Posts
99 comments:
"You can't open the schools without the teachers, and Democrats can't win without teachers."
As the Governor's race in Virginia showed, they can't win without parents either.
As long as teachers aren’t being paid while they choose not to work, they can do what they want.
Does he go to the grocery store?? A bank?? A restaurant?? How is it safe for THEM to work?? I will be for teachers not working when all progressives stay in their houses and don't come out ever again. They are hypocrites. If I had kids, there is no way I would send them to a public school. This is ridiculous. I hope this makes people take their kids out, and homeschool, or send them to a school with officials who care.
What's the point of bringing everyone into school if omicron is going to send a huge portion of them back home and make carrying on in person impossible? Isn't that how omicron is behaving? You can't wish that away or just tough it out. Maybe you want that to happen to just get it over with, but come out and say so if that's your idea.
“I’d see the entire city of Newark unemployed before I allowed one single teacher’s aide to die needlessly,” he said.
Perfectly encapsulates the leftist reaction to the pandemic. Cause huge amounts of suffering and even more needless deaths, to be able to say you saved one life. They're children.
I have a friend who is an elementary school teacher in Florida, and she tells me that the shutdown last year were devastating to the kids. She's a flaming liberal too, who freaks out at the sight of a Trump bumper sticker, stickers which are frequently encountered in Florida.
Maybe you want that to happen to just get it over with, but come out and say so if that's your idea.
So.
What's the point of bringing everyone into the grocery store?? A bank?? A restaurant?? if omicron is going to send a huge portion of them back home and make carrying on in person impossible? Isn't that how omicron is behaving? You can't wish that away or just tough it out
fify!
I guess all of the teacher's aids are driven to school in cars like the president rides in, with armed motorcades, medevac choppers in tow, etc. If it saves one life.
I had a neighbor died of HINI a few years back. Should schools have been shut down?
Serious Questions:
WHY are the people in these areas paying property taxes?
If their children aren't being taught; What are they paying the teachers for?
Last year my nurse friends were told: "If you refuse to work, it's considered voluntary termination"
ps. At least the Newark person has dropped pretending that 'it's all about the kids'
Last year my nurse friends were told: "If you refuse to work, it's considered voluntary termination"
sorry, that was TWO years ago....
Last year my nurse friends were told: "If you refuse vaccination, it's considered voluntary termination"
And THEN, THIS YEAR my nurse friends were told: "why'd you retire? we're short staffed!"
How many TEACHERS have quit their jobs in the last two years?
asking for a friend
gilbar said...
What's the point of bringing everyone into the grocery store?? A bank?? A restaurant?? if omicron is going to send a huge portion of them back home and make carrying on in person impossible? Isn't that how omicron is behaving? You can't wish that away or just tough it out
fify!
1/9/22, 5:42 AM
Exactly!!! Just lock everybody in their houses and only the strongest survive!!!
.
The teachers' position is not about science in general, certainly not about the demographic epidemiology of this particular disease, the crushing majority of whose victims are over age 65, and a majority of them either obese, diabetic or both. Most teachers are in their 20s and 30s, typical ages somewhat older -- but still well under 65 -- in middle and high school.
I spent two years teaching high school science, and for most of this century was regularly in middle and high school classrooms as a (rare) skilled substitute, so I know that world pretty well. One thing I discovered repeatedly is what I believe to be driving the too-common refusal to return to regular learning patterns: an uncertain-but-substantial percentage of teachers really don't like their students and prefer not to have to deal with them directly.
Sometimes you're going to have girl-boy break-up fights in the middle of your class. Or or in some of the tougher districts some gang shit going down. Or kids who stayed up way too late playing videos at their father's place, because he's a self-absorbed idiot lost in his own world and really doesn't care about his kid(s). Or kids who saw their father beating the daylights out of Mom during some drunken rage over the weekend. Even in the wealthier suburbs.
To be blunt, most 26 year-old women these days have never been given the life-skills for handling such situations -- and they don't want to have to deal with them. They received plenty of pædogogy and political-correctness during their B.Ed. years, but are commonly weak and uncertain when it comes to subject matter, but especially so about handling the volatility, anger, anxiety, and uncertainty so common in kids these days.
Why go back to the classroom when you not only use C19 as an excuse to avoid it, but also blame falling student performance not on your own collective inability to teach ... but the disease. And keep on getting your 50-grand per year.
Democrats see government as a giant game of Jenga, and think that they can keep pulling out pieces indefinitely, and the structure will never fail.
" ... and Democrats can't win without teachers."
And teachers shouldn't be paid without working.
Gilbar is right on target with the above comment on the nursing profession. Here in my part of the Midwest, the number of people in all professions just retiring instead of continuing on despite the nonsense is way under reported.
I thought the entire City of Newark was already pretty much unemployed.
I know that's not true, but it's one of those places I don't think has an especially robust economy.
Ronald Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers who refused to report to work. Teachers would seem to be even more easily replaceable.
Kids get sick and miss school all of the time, particularly during cold and flu season. If they're up to it, they get some work sent home to them to do, and if they aren't, they make up the work when they come back. The rest of the kids continue to go to school. I'm not sure what teachers think they are accomplishing. More families are choosing to home school removing some of the most engaged parents from public schools. The number of people supporting school voucher programs is growing steadily, and parents are learning there are online options where the teachers actually know how to teach in that environment and have curriculum designed to be used that way. Where teachers were once revered by their communities, now there is very little respect for them. It's almost like public school teachers are on a mission to make themselves non-essential.
Isn't that how omicron is behaving? You can't wish that away or just tough it out.
To continue this logic- the virus is with us forever. It isn’t going away. It’s forever. For Ever.
So what choices will society make? Do kids learn remotely forever? How do we compensate teachers who phone it in? Are unions necessary now that teachers are never exposed to other humans at work?
…and nobody in the leftie decision group is asking but what kind of education are kids getting? What kind of people does this new system create?
In Chicago, they are cancelling Police officer days off and forcing them to work.
Meanwhile the teachers and their unions are crying that they too are special to work during Covid. I bet the cops wish they went to school to become a teacher after all this. Who would want to be a cop in Chicago??
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2022/1/6/22869023/chicago-police-department-staffing-covid-canceled-days-off-coronavirus-fop-union
Just heard on Fox News that the Chicago public schools spends $27k per student. That’s way more than the cost of Omaha’s Jesuit and Sacred Heart high schools.
People are waking up. The Dems will lose many voters over remote learning.
Remote teachers don’t really have to whinge about class size, do they? Can we fire half of them? All of them?
Let the kids all go Kahn Academy on Youtube then mom and dad can buy a tutor with all the tax savings…
Are we to presume that school teachers don't get Covid anywhere but in a classroom?
“Maybe you want that to happen to just get it over with, but come out and say so if that's your idea.”
Very sure that’s the scenario where I live, Althouse. Last year the classes were A & B- alternating days in class. Wednesday’s we’re remote. This year I think it’s a fairly normal schedule, but the structure of the arrangement in the classroom- idk. Meaning: masks, distancing, lunch schedules… idk how that’s managed. I think the food may be delivered directly to each classroom, which is a strain on the kitchen… and no extra $$$ compensation.
A lot of positive cases where kids are sent home- close contacts sent home… tested- negative usually… back to school. The garbage created by the masks and test kits, rubber gloves etc… but no plastic bags allowed in the grocery stores. Yeah yeah- necessary evils and all that…
Teachers didn't sign up to be front line medical workers for your infected kids.
Consider how this reads to a member of the military. They also work for the government.
What if they take the training, pay, housing, and benefits, then develop a case of conscientious objection just after the war breaks out? This is a crisis, and we have been urged to mobilize as one would mobilize and organize to fight a war.
Show up. They see you as cowards. That feeling isn't hate. It's contempt.
You have a job. Do the job or let someone else do it.
Who do we allow to make decisions in a covid world where Carrot Top is more compelling than covid facts from experts?
Tell that to doctors and nurses Mary.
Again. They can quit, and let somebody else earn their paycheck. Easy as that...and they should NOT get bailed out by the taxpayers. EARN your paycheck, or leave.!!
David Begley said...
Just heard on Fox News that the Chicago public schools spends $27k per student
That comes to about a third of a MILLION dollars... Per Student! ($27*12years=324k)
A HUGE portion of that, was SUPPOSED TO BE for daycare
(sure isn't educating the kids (what % of Chicago kids can read? (or write?)))
IF the kids are NOT in school, they are NOT getting day care
WHY is Chicago spending a third of a MILLION dollars per child if they don't go to school?
[hint: THE Purpose of school, is to pay teacher's salaries]
IF we weren't paying all that money to teachers; and INSTEAD, GAVE it to the kids (parents)
That would pay for some pretty nice day care. If a mom had a couple of kids she'd make pretty good money staying home
would the kids LEARN Anything? in Chicago they DON'T learn Anything now!
Unions, community organizers, and ambulance chasers are basically legalized extortion.
Jeez, maybe police should stay home and collect their pay. They could get shot or stabbed or bitten by an AIDs infected junkie or get Omicron on the job. Firemen could fall through a blazing roof while venting the fire. Ad Nauseum.
The Catholic/Christian schools have carried on as usual- from the very beginning.
Ever notice that it is only the blue collar union officials that are targeted by the feds? What about that Jane Sanders felony, Hmm?
How can 84% of Chicago Public Schools students graduate when only 26% of 11th graders are proficient in reading, math?
They are staying home because Progressives defunded them Mary. Try to keep up.
Why won't you libertarians let the lady protect her health and keep the job none of you will do
Rather than let the old system decide when and where it wants to work there is an opportunity to be more constructive and redefine what teaching and teachers are. Instead of a protected career teacher let’s begin to allow experts in their fields to teach their skills.
I’ll gladly to accounting and economics. My good friend already goes to classrooms in Tennessee to teach nuclear chemistry. Anyone else?
We might find we don’t need all those full timers at all…
Embrace the omicron.
Fire them and let them collect inploymwnt while they sue for firing them based on health refusals? Again, the hypo is a fully valued teacher, sedentary, late 50s sat, obese and diabetic. She tests positive at home the first day schools reopen and has ongoing health issues...
Apply the rubric of the Great Barrington proposal and protect the most vulnerable teachers without applying a universal shutdown or remote mandate. The mandate is an easy out for the teachers and admins. If she's obese and diabetic in her late 50s, you can create an exemption. Let a healthy 25 year old take her class. It will be one more thing, but just because it is terribly hard is no reason to default so quickly to remote.
This is really hard to process from North Florida. Lots of my friends are public school teachers in this area, and their mindset is nothing like the Newark union guy. They take chances and put themselves on the line for their students every day.
Teachers are our future - nasty, brutish and short.
All this talk about 26 year old teachers ignores the drop in teaching school graduates and general lack of supply in the hiring market.
But don't let that stop you from your just-so stories pretending to solve the current problem. Internet expertise does not require actually discussing to topic posted or actual data on the ground, but you all clearly need to feel like experts and Althouse likes her Amazon money.
What an evil fucking quote in the post heading. He probably thought of saying he’d rather see everyone in Newark dead before… then pulled it back a bit.
The great American public school legend is coming apart in a most spectacular way. Schools are a jobs program for teachers. No one who works for the public school system puts children first. Power and perks come first, followed by myth-making and ideology. How will this be overcome if the population doesn’t build immunity? Fear and ignorance drive policy. You watched Justice Sotomayor. 100,000 children in hospitals, many on ventilators?
Please move to Illinois. It is a paradise run by Democrats top to bottom.
The teachers unions sound like a suicide cult- politically speaking.
Teachers unions made it abundantly clear years ago when former AFT President Albert Shanker was asked about kids education: "When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children."
That's pretty much all you need to know and this is why you cannot have unions running positions of the public interest. Their interest can, and are often, at opposition to the public needs. It's worth noting that the two largest teachers unions together are the single largest donors to the Democratic Party.
May they all rot.
Prof. Althouse,
"What's the point of bringing everyone into school if omicron is going to send a huge portion of them back home and make carrying on in person impossible? Isn't that how omicron is behaving?"
I teach at the college level. I'm trying to go remote for the first two weeks, then drive on. (Cue "two weeks to flatten the curve!" jokes, which are deserved.)
I don't want to go remote "until it's safe." From the most fearful perspective it'll never be safe. From mine it has been for a long time. I never had a problem teaching in person even before the vaccines; given age, health, etc. I put my original odds of dying from COVID if I got it at 1/2000. My only worry was spreading it unwittingly.
But several soldiers I work with through the Army Reserve now have this thing. ("Higher" no longer wants a report for any soldier diagnosed, I assume because they now expect they'll be fielding reports for all of us.) Half of the students in my research group have it. They'll all be fine, but they're all losing a good week to it. For the students who would be in my classroom on Monday, the odds that several people in the room have it and don't know it yet, in their first days back on campus, approach unity. I'd like to give them time to get tested (which they actually can here), and, frankly, get sick if they're going to, before we all get in a room together.
From there it's Drive On. This is pretty much my last shit to give unless we are talking about very frail or very sick people.
My first major red pill moment was when I first came across the idea of school vouchers in the early 1990s. I thought it was great to offer younger students and their families the same type of choice and financial support we give college age students.
Then I discovered everyone on the left opposed them and it was clear that it was because the public school industry, which was a major source of Democratic support, in volunteers, cash, and votes.
I had a choice to become cynical and keep my values or go along with my leftist allies. It was nota tough choice.
Ann, it’s not Omicron, it’s FEAR we have to overcome. Life is fraught with dangers everyday, every year. One can’t roll up in a ball and hide until the all clear siren sounds, because our Liberal foes, and their allies will never allow it to sound. They want to keep us wailing and ringing our hands in the dark. Fear is the key and we must be bold in the face of it.
"I’d see the entire city of Newark unemployed before I allowed one single teacher’s aide to die needlessly."
"I’d see every child in the entire city of Newark not learn how to read or write or do math, before I allowed one single teacher’s aide to die needlessly."
Priorities. Near my house is a nursing home, and a sign has been up all year. "Heroes work here."
I tested positive after Christmas, although I got sick in the days leading up to Christmas. Couldn't get a test until the worse symptoms were gone. Don't even know if what I had was Covid, but I tested positive. Oddly, I was with my elderly parents the entire time and they have not gotten sick. Badasses!
I say embrace Omicron as well. Let everyone get it.
I live in New Jersey. My neighbors across the street work for the public school system. She is a teacher, and he is an Asst. Principle. A young couple that has two kids. They two of them HATED remote learning for the kids they teached and could not WAIT to get back to school. Their two children go to a Catholic school so they can get a better education, and they are NOT Catholic. They hate the union that is shutting down schools. Oh....and the Catholic school NEVER shut down.
How can 84% of Chicago Public Schools students graduate when only 26% of 11th graders are proficient in reading, math?
Their confusing data source seems to give different numbers:
"% of Students Achieving (or Exceeding) 'Performance Level'":
English:
All : 23.1
White: 63.6
Black: 11.3
Asian: 52.7
Math:
All : 20.6
White: 58.0
Black: 8.3
Asian: 59.6
Has any teacher's aide ever suffered a fatal auto accident on the way to or from work? Shouldn't the schools have been shut down pre-Covid to keep this from happening? If not, please explain why Covid is different.
@Mark, here’s the problem. The unions and the teachers that belong to them (and the school boards allied with those unions) appear to have been spending the last three years (and more, actually) openly setting themselves against the parents. Loudoun County, Virginia, shows the result. In 2020 Joe Biden carried that county by 85,000 votes. Not a surprise; demographically the county is a bedroom community for federal workers and people who indirectly suck off the federal teat as contractors. Two months ago Terry McAuliffe won the county by 16,000 votes. Overall Glenn Youngkin won the state by less than 70,000 votes. You want to do the math?
Democrats are not shy about kicking various voting blocks out of their coalition. They didn’t mind throwing working people out and the loss of fifty percent of the Hispanic vote hasn’t notably perturbed them. But what happens when the teachers are more of a liability to winning an election than an asset? What then?
It's not surprising that unions are strongest in these inner city districts. The behavior of students and parents is outrageous and nothing like what most white boomers experienced in school.
It's no wonder teachers want to stay home. Kids are grabby little germ bombs anyway.
And if you're short staffed what are you going to do? I read of a school where a hundred kids were merely herded into the cafe-torium where a single sub pretended to teach.
Damn near anyone can get certified to sub so why don't you all step up to the plate eh? I'm too old.
One can’t roll up in a ball and hide until the all clear siren sounds, because our Liberal foes, and their allies will never allow it to sound.
@Fandor, or, as Justice Amy Barrett asked Elizabeth Prelogar, when does the emergency end? All of us are asking the same question.
Big Mike said...
@Fandor, or, as Justice Amy Barrett asked Elizabeth Prelogar, when does the emergency end? All of us are asking the same question.
Barret is a clear failure.
She is clearly helping the progressives maintain their long march.
What a beautiful example of all of the worst aspects of trade unions - and I come from a family of educators (3 generations).
Only essential workers deserve special protection. And by definition, essential workers show up for work reliably. Fire them if they don't show up and cannot provide a valid medical excuse. Dismantle the unions.
Too many teachers don't want to work in the classroom and see this as a perfect excuse to transition the education experience to virtual - in defiance of the hard data.
Too many teachers would not pass a competency exam, or would score in the lower quartiles.
Too many unions defy regular teacher qualification exams to prove competency and record/support professional advancement.
Too many students are moved through the grades without basic learning skills.
Too many administrators provide protective cover to the con.
Too much evidence that children are not spreaders of the disease.
Too much evidence that vaccinations provide effective immune system support.
Too many examples of other people, in other industries, carrying on.
Vouchers now. The public school industry needs to be dismantled.
Seriously, they think that schools exist to give money and benefits to "teachers," not to educate children. And within this climate of disregarding the primary interests of their clients, they demand to be thought of as "professionals."
One under-discussed problem is that public schooling is for the most part compulsary. Even in states that (progressively, liberally) allow home schooling, the state has laws on the books compelling the "home" to "school" children in particular subjects to a particular standard. And in fact child protective services in some jurisdictions are quite prompt in removing children from "failing" home schools.
So since children are required to assemble in herds, the herds are required to be tested, vaccinated, tagged and branded ... well, treated like cattle. Or sheep. Livestock, anyhow.
Thought experiment about the most extreme case: what if "school" and "education" were NOT compelled by the powers of the state. Schools provided, sure. Just like state colleges. Just like post offices. And a good thing, too. But nobody is compelled to mail so many letters per year. Nobody is REQUIRED to go to a state college. Suppose only those who chose to do so, registered a child for a classes, and did so by the semester. No penalty for changing your mind at the end of a semester. What would happen?
For anyone wondering what Omicron is like, I have a couple data points. My daughter-in-law came down with it, and has had worse head colds. Mild fever, runny nose, over in one day. She felt generally fatigued for two more days (three days total). Could return to work tomorrow except company policy requires her to stay home until Friday. And I’m glad it was so mild, as she is four months along carrying what will be my first grandchild.
So, easy peezy, right? Not so fast. Her husband, my son, was hit hard, with a high fever, constricted feeling in his chest, and a pulse rate over 140 (tachycardia). An ambulance took him to the only hospital ER in their part of Baltimore still accepting patients, and the doctor administered some sort of steroid to control the pulse rate, prescribed some meds, and despite a positive COVID test sent him home. Overall fatigue and and occasional tachycardia spikes (but not as bad as the day he went to the ER) lasted another eight days or so. He’s cleared to go back to work Tuesday, but he still doesn’t feel completely healthy yet.
Yes, both were fully vaccinated. Omicron is like the honey badger, it don’t care. Yes, it’s almost certainly Omicron. Senses of smell and taste not affected (85% of delta or earlier variants report loss of those senses) and other symptoms (e.g., son has back pain) are typical of Omicton but not delta or earlier variants.
Takeaway seems to be that most cases are like my daughter-in-law’s — very mild, you’ve had colds that are worse. A small number are like my son’s — very serious, but not enough to put him in an ICU or even admit him for observation.
On balance I think they should reopen the schools.
"When children pay union dues, I will care about children" Albert Shanker NY AFT president.
"What's the point of bringing everyone into school if omicron is going to send a huge portion of them back home and make carrying on in person impossible? Isn't that how omicron is behaving?"
No, that's not how it is behaving. Kids were home for weeks for the holiday break. That's when cases exploded. Same as last year when the public kids were all remote -- cases remained high for distance teachers. Meanwhile, the non-publics providing in-person instruction mostly had low rates of transmission.
God the ignorance about COVID is the deadliest aspect of it! He can’t stop anyone from dying from the WuFlu any more than Canute could stop the tides. As many of us have said all along, viruses are gonna virus. We are ALL going to get the virus, be vaccinated or both. Staying “isolated” will work for teachers (and the poor fearful aides this quoted idiot refers to) just as well as it’s proved to work at the fucking South Pole, which is to say: “it ain’t.” Ignorance is such a bad look for alleged “leaders,” and the blame here belongs at the top with Fauci and Biden and their deliberate choice to pretend COVID is the Black Plague. This shortsighted poorly executed reaction to a very bad flu variant is killing Public Health as a trusted institution along with education and too much of the economy.
Wild Chicken and Lefty Mark,
Then, I think both of you should agree that public schooling in these areas needs to be undone and vouchers given to the parents to find private schooling. Right?
Question- what is happening with the private schools in Chicago and Newark?
Basically what needs to happen in Newark and Chicago is the teachers either show up to work, or are fired for cause. It really is that simple.
Teachers are our future - nasty, brutish and short
Now that’s funny.
I forgot natural immunity, which many of us had to COVID, from prior flu-like infections. So to be more clear, we will all get it, or be vaccinated and/or have immunity to it. One cannot really hide from it or achieve “zero COVID” because respiratory viruses are ubiquitous, not rare like polio or Ebola, and continuously mutating. A little humility would do Fauci et al a world of good.
American teachers are caught in a mental and emotional trap. They consider themselves worldly and informed, yet years of media indoctrination have left them completely unprepared to handle the 180 degree shift in China Flu doctrine. They believe they are "heroes" but are unable to realize that the vast majority of American workers brave far harsher conditions as cashiers, resource extractors, and factory workers. And these people BITTERLY resent the lazy teachers who don't look after their kids. This leads into the most critical dissonance: teachers believe their presence, whether real or virtual, is enough to impart the "education" they believe is their highest value. In reality, people use public schools for babysitting. Nothing more. Take that away, and you may as well leave your kids with Khan Academy, the television, or a housepet as an overseer. Any of which would be more qualified than the average twentysomething education major.
The irony is deep, and promises to fracture the Democrat coalition at the nadir of their political legitimacy. How marvelous.
Labor officials say that many of their critics are acting in bad faith, exploiting parents’ pandemic-related frustrations to advance longstanding political goals, like discrediting unions and expanding private-school vouchers....
"Labor officials" are always yelling that the public wants to get rid of unions...and then go out and say and do the very things that makes the public want to get rid of unions.
Can we All Agree that The Reasons for Public School Are (in descending order of importance):
1) Providing Money for Unions to give to the Democrat Party
2) Providing Money for Unions to pay Union Personal
3) Providing Money for School District Administrators
4) Providing Money for School Administrators
5) Providing Money for School Teachers (including Librarians, etc)
and, finally...
6) Providing Money for School (and District) Staff (custodians, maintenance, bus drivers, etc)
I don't think i missed anything, did i?
What about the students in Newark - how are they doing?
In Newark, one testing company has gotten rid of grades and is using categories like "strong support needed", meaning: would fail test or F. Below are some of the results as of October 2021.
"In the math test, the overwhelming majority of fifth graders, or 87%, fell in the lowest score range, or in the “strong support” category, while only 3.9% fell in the “less support” category, or the highest score range.
The “less support” category is equivalent to scoring high on the typical state standardized tests, such as achieving a proficient or an above proficiency score, ... the “strong support” category would be on par with the lowest score, not meeting grade expectations."
If minority children can't do fifth grade work, how will they be able later to graduate from high school? or go to college? What good are Diversity, Equity teams which are too cowardly to get the teachers back in the schools to teach minority children?
https://newark.chalkbeat.org/2021/12/10/22828196/newark-test-start-strong-results-pandemic-learning-loss
At $27,000 a head, I'll take on 5 students and pay 20% to some agency for administrative overhead. I'll make a nice comfortable living that way. Especially since I homeschooled 6 kids for free.
The problem with the remote learning, for us, was that my kids had to go into town to public places to get good enough internet to do zoom meetings.
It’s ironic that we want our kids educated well so that they can compete well in the world, but our educators themselves, through their union, refuse to face any competition.
Can we All Agree that The Reasons for Public School Are... [list of 6]
Well, I can't speak for "All" nor will I yet quite agree the list stops at six reasons. But the list so far is well founded and well-structured, I agree.
Not sure where the following fit into the sequence but we might consider:
"Keeping potentially competitive, low wage, workers OUT of the labor pool"
"Providing property developers, covertly, the government powers to seize land under 'public domain' and public funding via low-interest "bond" funds in order to build 'schools' (and roads, power lines, water and sewer structures) making surrounding property
worth 'flipping'. "
"Providing money to textbook publishers and brokers of classroom 'technology' "
From heroes to zeroes in just two years.
Good job union bosses.
'A' for effort.
What surprises me is that we pay 27,000 per student for these schools. We could send them all to the State University for that price. The money is not going into education at that level, it is leaking somewhere else.
With that absurd metric, do annual flu.
Are the teachers and teachers aides not vaccinated and boosted? What is the problem then?
Answer the question without asserting (implicitly or otherwise) that vaccines/boostings don't work.
wildswan said...
....
If minority children can't do fifth grade work, how will they be able later to graduate from high school? or go to college?...
Through affirmative action and quotas, of course.
What good are Diversity, Equity teams which are too cowardly to get the teachers back in the schools to teach minority children?
None whatsoever, as are any employees, offices, divisions with the words Equal Opportunity, Diversity Management, Inclusion, and newly added to the list- Equity- attached to their job title or organization name.
gilbar said...
Can we All Agree that The Reasons for Public School Are (in descending order of importance):
1) Providing Money for Unions to give to the Democrat Party
2) Providing Money for Unions to pay Union Personal
3) Providing Money for School District Administrators
4) Providing Money for School Administrators
5) Providing Money for School Teachers (including Librarians, etc)
and, finally...
6) Providing Money for School (and District) Staff (custodians, maintenance, bus drivers, etc)
I don't think i missed anything, did i?
You missed the most important things public schools are doing:
- Public schools have raised a generation of children that hate the freedom of others and want to do away with the bill of rights.
- Public schools have taught a generation of kids that white people and uppity asians are evil racists that have all the money and should have it taken from them and be persecuted.
If you want your kids to go to school in person, come on down to Tennessee. But there is a condition. You have to start voting Republican, because you want what we have. We want nothing to do with what you have.
J Melcher said...
"Providing property developers, covertly, the government powers to seize land under 'public domain' and public funding via low-interest "bond" funds in order to build 'schools' (and roads, power lines, water and sewer structures) making surrounding property
worth 'flipping'. "
I Thought about adding those! i stand corrected!
Achilles said...
-Public schools have raised a generation of children that hate the freedom of others...
- Public schools have taught a generation of kids that white people and uppity asians are evil racists
i figure that Those things are the gravy. You get them Free of Charge :)
'Through affirmative action and quotas, of course.'
Many large, 'prestigious' universities are doing away with standardized testing like the SATs.
God forbid you need a surgeon ten years from now.
They'll take anybody in the name of 'equity.'
And it's a good way to keep out the Jews and the Asians, so that's a bonus!
I'd heard via a high seniority public school teacher that the standing protocol was that everyone passes to the next grade. Key to the issue There are no means, (budget) for students to repeat a grade. Multiply that by the %50 of students "lacking proficiency".
Ann Althouse said...
What's the point of bringing everyone into school if omicron is going to send a huge portion of them back home and make carrying on in person impossible? Isn't that how omicron is behaving? You can't wish that away or just tough it out. Maybe you want that to happen to just get it over with, but come out and say so if that's your idea.
************************
Not even Delta or the original strain brought everyone home from school. As we are learning every day, Omicron is a much weaker variant.
Surely by now you must know that kids very seldom get sick and almost none die from covid, whichever variant the very few come down with. DITTO younger healthier people-------ESPECIALLY those already vaccinated.
Even the CDC says that about 600 kids have died TO DATE, and Makary at Johns Hopkins has shown that almost all had co-morbidities, especially obesity.
Surely you must know. If you don't, it's YOU who need to get up to speed.
Seriously, Althouse. If you're going to pontificate about covid you ought to know the basics.
Maybe you should spend less time reading and analyzing the bleatings of NY Time wymyn bleating about their empty lives.
Achilles said...
Big Mike said...
@Fandor, or, as Justice Amy Barrett asked Elizabeth Prelogar, when does the emergency end? All of us are asking the same question.
Barret is a clear failure.
She is clearly helping the progressives maintain their long march.
*******************
Why is asking for a definition of success and closure helping progs?
“You can't open the schools without the teachers, and Democrats can't win without teachers”
It’ll be interesting to see if that particular bit of political currency is devalued. It wouldn’t surprise me if it turned out that it wasn’t, but I’ve never seen the spigots of contempt flow more freely than they do today.
:Say it out loud: teachers have been AWOL during the covid pandemic. And they apparently have gotten used to it.
Yancey Ward said...
Question- what is happening with the private schools in Chicago and Newark?
They are open and teaching in person. The Catholic schools, from what I have been told, have never closed since fal;l 2020.
Peripheral teaches at private school. True believer in following govt virus rules. Living with a person with virus symptoms,employed at same school.
Went for free tests, line too long, skipped test.
Guess "protecting children" not so important when weighed against standing in line.
Not that this will ever happen but if the Republicans were to gain the federal trifecta the things they need to do and should do simultaneously is require applicants for federal welfare and benefits to be able to pass a GED ( between the ages of 16 through 30) absent a medical condition that makes them unable to work. Eliminate the Department of Education along with all of its rules and regulations and have whatever money Congress is going appropriate as block grants to the states to be pass through to the child to spend at the school of the parent's choice. Pass national right to work. Make the GED a test that meets employer's requirements for literacy and numeracy as the basic minimum. Abolish the federal student loan program.
"I’d see the entire city of Newark unemployed before I allowed one single teacher’s aide to die needlessly."
Said John Abeigon, the Newark Teachers Union president...
If periods of remote learning this winter hurt the Democratic Party, “that’s a question for the consultants and the brain trusts to figure out,” said Mr. Abeigon, the Newark union president. “But that it’s the right thing to do? There’s no question in my mind.”
So, note here: he doesn't care, at all, that "If periods of remote learning this winter hurt the" students.That idea is not even on his mental radar.
You can't open the schools without the teachers, and Democrats can't win without teachers.
If we're going to do remote learning, the we can video the best teachers for each subject for each grade level, and fire all teh rest of the teachers.
Have regular tests. Generate 10x as many questions for each checkpoint swill be needed. They each student takes a computer administered test with his / her questions selected randomly from among the pool.
You need to hire graders to score the tests. Other than that?
We can replace the teachers. And if they keep on demanding that they get to be members of the laptop class, we will replace them
And then the Democrats will be even more screwed, because at that point none of that teacher many / volunteer work will be coming their way
Mark said...
All this talk about 26 year old teachers ignores the drop in teaching school graduates and general lack of supply in the hiring market.
Thank you for playing, you're so cute.
"Education" degrees are worthless. There's plenty of people quite willing to come in and teach, esp if they can get the salary and benefits that currently go with the job.
And most of them will do far better than teh current "teachers."
Greg The Class Traitor said something very true- “”Education” degrees are worthless.” I looked at teaching as a career move when retiring from active duty after 21 years. And decided it was far too dangerous a field for a middle aged white male to enter. A decision I saw evidence of a few years after moving to CNY. A very popular and very good teacher was accused of sexual harassment by three female teens who didn’t like the grades they got. Suspended, without pay of course, because no woman lies about such things. After two years of investigation he was completely cleared and reinstated and given back pay for the time he was suspended. And promptly put in his retirement papers.
The Navy spent two weeks putting me through instructor school followed by 3 years of teaching Navy Class “A” School in my field.
As a Scout leader I teach multiple life skills. Cooking. Safe fire starting, safe knife, ax, saw, and other sharp object handling. First aid. Poisonous plant identification. And so on and so forth, all without benefit of a teaching degree. And the 3 Citizenship Merit Badges. Approved as counselor for them because of my BS in political science.
I took the National Teacher’s Exam while still in the process of figuring what to do after leaving active duty. They don’t give a percentile. They tell you the raw score in each section of the middle 50%. I scored one above or more on every section. The frightening number was the math section. 25 questions. For me, 25 right. IIRC, the middle 50% was 7-16. Allowing for mistaken filling in of the wrong circle, IMHO anyone with a raw score <23 in that section shouldn’t be teaching anything. 65% is usually considered the lowest passing grade on a test. 75% of the test takers, the vast majority of them having education degrees, failed using that criteria.
Side note:
https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/situation.html#ageg1
There's been 7 deaths of people under the age of 20, 16 total for under age 25.
That's in a State with over a million cases of Covid, and a population over 5.6 million
That's what I mean when I say "Covid id not a disease of the young"
Newark is 11% white and 2% Asian. The commenters trying to apply middle class values and sensibilities to an urban shithole are wasting their time.
Oh, and the teachers and residents there will vote Democrat regardless.
"So, note here: he doesn't care, at all, that "If periods of remote learning this winter hurt the" students. That idea is not even on his mental radar."
Of course not. Those students don't pay union dues, do they?
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